Plans for future don’t please all

Erin Neff

Tuesday, June 6, 2000 | 10:59 a.m.

If the city of Las Vegas remains on its current planning path over the next two decades, future city residents will go to a downtown somewhere northwest of Cheyenne Avenue.

The area currently considered the downtown core will lose business and residents to booming areas farther to the north and south, and about 800,000 residents will clog arterial roads and further pollute the air, a plan released Monday says.

City planners presented those grim possibilities as they unveiled the draft Master Plan 2020 to the City Council and the Planning Commission during a special joint meeting at Cashman Center.

But that future, like that of Ebeneezer Scrooge's, isn't set in stone. Planning Director Tim Chow said the policies enacted to manage growth over the next 20 years can create a flourishing city everyone wants to call home.

The document, which focuses on downtown, older neighborhoods and new development in the northwest, recommends numerous policies to keep all three areas thriving.

"If we intervene in this way, we think many of the older areas will increase in population," Chow said. "We think this will make a difference."

The draft document was formulated over the past year by city planners with the help of a 40-person steering committee composed of residents and representatives of the development community.

Ultimately adopting the suggested plans will createcompact areas of development with residential, commercial and industrial zones within short driving distances of each other.

"Shorter trips between work and home will help reduce air pollution and traffic congestions," Chow said.

The plan recommends developing a significant housing component downtown to spark stores and services to open shop nearby. The plan also recommends bringing cultural, entertainment and sports facilities downtown.

Planners also set forth a specific neighborhood revitalization area running roughly west of Interstate 15 to Rainbow Boulevard, north to Carey Avenue and east of Las Vegas Boulevard to Eastern Avenue.

Councilman Michael McDonald requested the area be expanded west to Rainbow to include older neighborhoods and various residential associations.

The developing areas north of Cheyenne Avenue in northwest Las Vegas are eyed for education facilities, employment centers and recreational areas.

Planning Commissioner Hank Gordon said he thinks the plan shows downtown's potential as more than just a daytime government hub. Gordon suggested the city vacate certain streets to allow larger lot sizes to be assembled for shopping center development downtown.

Mayor Oscar Goodman said he would "use extortionary tactics, similar to those of my former life" to lure developers away from the northwest and back to downtown.

"I'll choke developers to bring them downtown," said Goodman, a criminal defense attorney who represented organized crime figures.

Several residents who attended the meeting said they were disappointed by certain elements.

Daniel Ross, who lives in the area near Las Vegas Academy eyed for a historic district, stressed his neighbors' opposition to that idea.

"They do not want to be a quaint, historic district," Ross said.

Most vocal was steering committee member Helena Garcia, who was angered that she learned about Monday's meeting only by accident last week.

Garcia envisions a downtown with an arts district, a Chinatown or a farmers market that draws residents back to the core area.

"You need to see what the community wants and not what the city staff wants," Garcia said.

Others disputed the proposal as it relates to other concepts: the city's Downtown 2005 plan, the West Las Vegas community plan and the Downtown Central Development Committee's downtown plan.

"Let's have one map," said Al Gallego, angered that his home on Bonanza Road wasn't considered to be downtown by the master plan 2020. "I have 20 maps, and I can't distinguish one from another."

The master plan will be displayed in the sixth community meeting tonight at 6:30 at the Summerlin Library on Inner Circle Drive.

The Planning Commission will vote on the draft plan June 15, and the City Council is scheduled to approve it in August.

Tambri Heyden, the planning manager in charge of the document, said planners will begin working on a second phase to the Master Plan 2020 once the council approves it.

The second phase will incorporate specific zoning changes in the medical district and other areas.